Where I Said I Would Be
by Firestar9mm
Summary: Nina Gordon inspired this one, "2003". I heard the song live at Lilith before she released it, and lo, this story was born.


Where I Said I Would Be  
GW Zechs/Noin fic by Serena  
***********************  
The first thing he realized, with a deep inward sigh of relief, was that his mask was still on. Not that he really thought they would take it off; Noin would see that they didn't. But he was much too close to the Sank Kingdom to make any mistakes now.   
As long as he hid behind this mask, he was Zechs Merquise, the Lightning Count, the soldier that every commander wanted and every cadet wanted to be. As long as the mask remained, there were no vestiges of the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft.   
He yanked the oxygen mask off roughly, sputtering and coughing. There was thick pressure around his shoulder and middle-bandages. What the hell had happened to him up there...?  
Voices floated past him, underwater and far away.  
"You're recovering nicely from the heart attack, but there are still irregularities in the circulatory system."  
"So basically what you're saying is that I'm lucky to be alive." His throat ached; it felt like he'd swallowed gravel. Also his teeth, which he'd apparently been grinding in his sleep. Also his neck, which felt like a metal band was wrapped around it.   
There was some kind of white noise in his ears, sort of like the sound of a waterfall, or a gentle rain. His eyes were shadowed, as if it were getting on towards evening, but he knew it was already well into the night. The light he saw came not from the lantern in the corner of the makeshift medical tent they'd fashioned, but from the woman in front of him. Darkness threatened to chase him back into unconsciousness, but she shone through it like a dolphin.   
"I'm glad you're safe," she whispered, just enough for him to hear.  
He took a breath, which wasn't getting any easier. But he wanted to talk to her, and putting the oxygen mask back on would hinder any communication.  
"I underestimated the Tallgeese," he managed to grate out. "It completely ignores the commands of the pilot..."  
"Ignores the commands of the pilot! What do you mean?" The tremor in her voice was unmistakable. He paid attention not for the obvious reason. Noin worried; she was his subordinate-no, more like his partner-and above all that she was his friend. She worried; that was her job. That was the lot she had taken and she lived it faithfully.   
What he paid attention to was the care in her voice-that was for him, and he knew it was for him. She was concerned about him. She did not want harm to befall him. These were the moments that sustained him in his at times nearly impossible fight. He was a silent detective, collecting each small sign of devotion: her eyes shining when he returned from a battle, her steady presence just at his side and a little to the right, that long-ago tap of her sword against his that night at Victoria Base. And this, her presence now, her soft soothing voice ringing through his head, not with the words she said...  
"You should rest. I know it's difficult with the Sank Kingdom so close, but please believe that rest is what you need most now..."  
...but with the words she did not say.  
(I'm here.)  
These things were his constants in a world with no constants except for the constant of change. That look in Noin's eyes was for him and him alone, and he guarded it jealously, secretly, but always faithfully.  
He sighed, reclined. "I've become such a coward..."  
(I've been such a coward.)  
"The more I try to utilize the abilities of the mobile suit..."  
(The more I try to convince myself to reveal my feelings to you...)  
"...the more I start to doubt my own abilities."  
(...the more I am sure I can never be brave enough to do so.)  
She listened, her presence steady at his side. He remembered helping her out of that mobile suit after the Victoria attack.  
(Let me fight alongside you.)  
In that sentence she had not only requested something of him, she had promised something to him.   
(I'll be here. I'll always be here by your side.)  
It was a promise they had both fought harder than anything to keep.  
Perhaps she remembered too; he saw her eyes crinkle just that little bit in the corners, the way they did when she wanted to smile but felt it wasn't appropriate. He wanted to smile back, but naturally didn't. They sat that way, and for now, it was enough.  
  
"The Tallgeese has taken off!"  
"What? Who?" Zechs asked, trying to sit down as every muscle in his body screamed in protest. Noin was up in a nanosecond, holding him steady.  
He did not remember how he managed to get to the communications link and it did not matter. What mattered was that the honorable fool on the other end would not listen to reason.  
"I want to give my life for you, Lieutenant Zechs. Please allow me to assist in fulfilling your dream, sir! I would be honored to sacrifice myself-"  
"Otto. Listen to me. Return to base at once. Otto!"  
"-for your glorious cause-"  
He sounded terrible, his breathing like a bucket of bolts. Death rattle, Zechs thought, and knew it was too late. Still he tried one last time to pound some logic into the parfit gentil knight that was about to die for his incompetent king.   
"Otto. Return to base immediately. Otto!"  
The connection broke and the screen filled with snow, the sound of it amazingly like the white noise that still flooded his brain. He wanted to smash the computer with his fist, claim some kind of damage in return for the life that had just been lost.  
As his eyes were sliding shut he felt a strong presence beside him, and it was enough to hold him up and force him to regain his composure.  
He turned his head just a little, looking out of the corner of his eye to see Noin, waiting where she had always said she would be, where she would always be and belonged, just at his side, and a little to the right.  
  
***********************  
  
This one's a little old, but I felt it deserved to be posted because all my writings are my children, and like any harried mother I never feel like I'm distributing my attention equally. Zechs and Noin are my favorite pairing besides Sally and Wufei, and I haven't been able to write one of those yet. Maybe I'll try again...feedback please, but any Big O fanfic reader who's read my stuff knows my rule: please be constructive. No unreasonable ranting, okay?  



End file.
